Hot Chocolate
by Anrheithwyr
Summary: She really did love Petunia, no matter how things turned out. After all, it was the little moments that mattered. Little things, like a cup of hot chocolate.


_**Written for the 'Hot Chocolate Competition/Challenge' by chewinggumandpencils. **_

_**/**_

_December 23, 1977 _

_Dear Alice, _

_I know it has only been a week since I last saw you, but it feels like a year! My family-what's left of it, that is-seems to have forgotten the holiday spirit. My da certainly never saw reason to 'trim the holly', as they say, and without my mum here, Christmas holidays are eerily quiet. My sister, Petunia, (you know, the blonde girl from the photograph?) has invited us over for her first Christmas at her fiance's house. They've only been engaged for a few weeks now and she's already stitching 'Mrs. Vernon Dursley' on everything. It's quite frightening, really, to imagine how mad love can drive you-or is that just lust? (Is there any difference, deep down?) _

_We have a tree up, a dodgy little greenish-brown thing that tilts and droops. I water every day, but it continues to die, despite my adamant wishes otherwise. There are a few presents underneath already, mostly from Da's cousin Bertha and her family. (They're a strange lot who still live in Ireland. They find us to be the family novelties, if you can believe it.) I think the small one is from Remus, this little round package that may or may not contain any of the following: chocolate, a book, chocolate, a necklace, chocolate, photographs, or chocolate. That does seem to be his fall-back gift, doesn't it? No presents from my da yet. Not sure he even is celebrating Christmas this year. Why bother, right? The first one is always the worst, his counselor said, when I came by to pick him up. (You would think my dad was a wizard, the way he treats cars and electronics with suspicion!) _

_My sister, of course, moves ever onward, as if our mother wasn't seven months in her grave. But, she's getting married in April, so it doesn't matter, right? Speaking of my sister- _

"Lily?" It was Petunia, Lily's twenty year old sister, standing at the foot of the staircase. The blonde girl had not stepped into her little sister's bedroom in five years, too self-conscious about all the Hogwarts' decorations and obvious little signs of magic everywhere.

"Yeah? I'm writing a letter to Ali, can you wait a little?"

"No, I can _not _'wait a little'! Daddy has gotten a ride with Mr. Josef and he wants us to clean off the driveway before he comes back, remember? Or where you planning on leaving that all to _me_, again? Need I remind you that Vernon _wanted _to come and help? It isn't _his _fault he's sick."

Lily sighed, watching the inkblot that symbolized her sister's distraction. It quickly dried on the page, just another thing Petunia had ruined beyond fixing. Since when was it _Lily's _fault that Vernon had insisted on cleaning up the driveway-all by himself-but very _conveniently _gotten the flu just in time to escape the winter holidays and all the cleaning that came with it?

She really ought to just call Petunia out on her accusation. That's what half of her-the side that she had gotten from too much time with Marlene and Emma-screamed to do. But Lily Evans was reasonable to a fault; she also didn't care to argue with her sister very much. They were already on such shaky ground.

"Of course I remember the snow, Tuney. It's just, I thought we had _hours _to do that. Can't I finish this up first?"

"Do you _know _how much snow is out there?" Petunia snapped, sounding horribly offended. Lily might as well have knocked over the vase her sister had given her last year. (A very ugly thing, Lily was constantly trying to pass it off to friends or accidentally 'lose' it.) "It might just take us _hours _and _hours _to do it."

Feeling like a hypocrite-not that she wasn't, Lily rolled her eyes. "Stop being so dramatic. There can't be _that _much snow."

…...Silence from downstairs.

"Maybe you could _magically _vanish it all, if there's 'not that much snow'? Or is that also on the list of things you can't do outside of school?"

A sigh from upstairs...

"How much snow is there, Tuney?" she asked, wishing-as millions do every day-why she couldn't be an only child.

"A lot." Petunia said almost gleefully, as her sister groaned upstairs.

'A lot' turned out to be much too true. Seven inches of the cold, white, wetness settled up to Lily's calves, turning her boots into soggy lumps of cloth. It was _really too cold _for this. It was really too a lot of things to be shoveling snow, but they had promised Da. (Well, really, Vernon had fake-promised Da and Lily had gotten stuck doing his job.)

"Ready?" she asked her sister, who was eyeing the snow distastefully, like it might bite her.

"Sure. The sooner we finish this, the better. It's cold out here. I _hate, hate, hate _the snow. It's so wet and it gets everywhere."

Lily, quiet honestly, agreed. Snow was pretty until it melted on your face and hair, leaving you wet and grungy looking. Besides, it covered driveways and wasted Lily's day having to do mindless jobs.

_**/**_

Three hours later, the two girls trudged inside, wet, sticky, and red in the face. Neither seemed too pleased with their work, as it had started snowing fifty minutes into the job, making things hard to see, and (of course) adding more work to do.

"I'm probably going to die of hypothermia or frostbite or something." grumbled Petunia, heading into the kitchen for some biscuits someone had dropped by with earlier. (Only benefit of no mum for the holidays: people insisted you were going to starve to death and brought over brownies and ginger biscuits.)

"Want some hot chocolate?"

"No."

Lily shrugged and leaned upward, grabbing at a box of cocoa mix sitting on the top shelf. She pulled it down, looking for the big, puffy marshmallows her da liked to buy, wondering if he'd notice if she snuck off with a few. Probably not.

Wishing that she was allowed to use magic around her sister-one accident three years ago had given birth to an official ban on all things 'freaky'-Lily waited as her cocoa heated, slowly, on the stove top. She watched her sister bite the head off a gingerbread man, scowling down at it as if it had committed some grievous crime.

"You okay, Tuney?"

"Hm?" Petunia looked up, giving Lily a distant, distracted look. "Yeah, yeah. I'm fine."

"You look ready to murder that cookie." Petunia gave her sister an odd look. It had been ages since the two had really had an actual conversation that didn't involved fighting with another, but Lily felt an unusual urge to talk with Petunia, and decided to take her chances. "Is something wrong?"

"No-yeah. Yeah, I guess so. I mean, Vernon and I are getting married, soon, right?"

"In April. How could I forget?" Petunia gave her a dirty look, shutting Lily up.

"In April, right. I'm just worried that he's only marrying me because it makes him look good. What if he doesn't actually love me or think I'm pretty? What if we're marrying for the wrong reasons?"

"Wow. I wasn't aware you were so unsure of yourself."

Petunia glared, turning away. "I _knew _you couldn't take any on this seriously!"

"Wait, Tuney, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it that way. I just thought, you know, you were marrying Vernon because of all the reasons you _don't _doubt him. Or yourself."

"Ha! Is that what you think marriage is, Lily? Every bride probably doubts herself. And every man turns away and looks for something more. Why should my marriage be any different?"

"I'm sure Vernon cares for you very much. Maybe you should just ask him about it."

Petunia shook her head with a condescending smile. "You really don't know much about relationships and love and marriage, do you?"

"I suppose not. Cocoa?" Lily asked, handing her sister one the cups she had made while they were talking. (Lily often ignored what her sister told her to do.)

"Thanks," Petunia said, taking a sip. "Wow. That's really warm. Thanks."

"You're welcome."

"Feels like it's been years since we've really talked."

"Maybe it's the cocoa. Mum used to always say chocolate made people talk."

"Yeah, maybe. But, then again, Mum used to make amazing hot chocolate."

"Are you saying mine is bad?"

"Might be."

"Petunia!"

Petunia laughed, taking another noisy slurp from her cup, leaving a smear across her mouth. She grinned at her younger sister. "But really, thank you for the cocoa. It made me feel better. Well, so did this talk, but mostly the cocoa."

"Yeah."

"But your cocoa still is _awful _compared to Mum's."

"Git."

_-where was I? My sister, oh yeah. Well, I guess maybe Petunia's not so bad. I mean, she can be annoying and an absolute pain sometimes (don't even get me started about when we were really little and she would always boss me around) but I guess it's all just a part of being related. Her fiance is still a jerk-did I tell you he faked being sick to get out of cleaning the snow? He's over here now, mysteriously cured just in time for supper-but Petunia has still got a bit of that sweet little girl in her, from back before Hogwarts. _

_But anyway..._


End file.
